St. Dunstan of Canterbury, Abbot of Glastonbury, Twenty-Sixth Archbishop of Canterbury

19 May

Dunstan, born of a noble Anglo-Saxon family with connections to the
ruling house of Wessex, was one of the great figures in English history.
He received his early education from the Irish monks at Glastonbury.
While still young, he was sent as a page to the court of Athelstan.

He had already received the tonsure, and his uncle,
Bishop Saint Alphege the Bald (f.d. March 12)
of Winchester, encouraged him to join the
religious life. Dunstan hesitated for some time and nearly got married,
but after recovering from a skin condition he believed to be leprosy, he
received the habit (in 934) and holy orders from his uncle the same day
as
Saint Ethelwold (f.d. August 1)
circa 939.

He returned to Glastonbury and is thought to have built a small cell
next to the old church, where he engaged in prayer, study, and manual
labour that included making bells and sacred vessels for the church and
copying or illuminating books. He is said to have excelled as a
painter, embroiderer, harpist, bell-founder, and metal worker. As
Dunstan would play the harp and sing to the nuns of the abbey as they
embroidered his designs. Once, it is said, when he hung up his harp on
the wall and left the room for a while, the harp continued to play of
its own accord. The residents of the abbey took it to be an omen of
Dunstan's future greatness.

Dunstan also loved the music of the human voice: when he sang at the
altar, wrote a contemporary, he seemed to be talking with the Lord face
to face. As one skilled in the arts, Dunstan stimulated the revival of
church art.

Athelstan's successor, Edmund, called him to court to act as a royal
counsellor and treasurer. In 943, King Edmund I narrowly escaped death
while hunting, he appointed Dunstan abbot of Glastonbury with the
commission to restore monastic life there and richly endowed the
monastery. According to the old Saxon chronicle, Dunstan was only 18
when he became abbot of Glastonbury.

Dunstan restored the monastery buildings and the Church of Saint Peter.
By introducing monks among the priests already in residence, he enforced
regular discipline without any ill feelings. He made the abbey into a
great centre of learning. Dunstan also revitalised other monasteries in
Glastonbury.

The murder of King Edmund was followed by the accession of his brother
Edred, who made Dunstan one of his top advisors. Dunstan became deeply
embroiled in secular politics and incurred the wrath of the West Saxon
nobles for denouncing their immorality and for urging peace with the
Danes.

In 955, Edred died and was succeeded by his 16-year-old nephew Edwy. On
the day of his coronation, Edwy left the royal banquet to see a girl
named Elgiva and her mother. For this he was sternly rebuked by
Dunstan, and the prince deeply resented the chastisement. With the
support of the opposing party, Dunstan was disgraced, his property
confiscated, and he was exiled.

He spent a year then in Ghent, Flanders, and there he came into contact
with reformed continental monasticism. This experience fuelled his
vision of monastic Benedictine perfection that would inspire his work
from then on.

A rebellion broke out in England; the north and east deposed Edwy and
put his brother
Edgar the Peaceful (f.d. July 8)
on the throne. Edgar
recalled Dunstan and appointed him chief adviser, in 957 bishop of
Worcester, and bishop of London in 958. On Edwy's death in 959, the
kingdom was reunited under Edgar, who appointed Dunstan archbishop of
Canterbury in 961. Together the two initiated a policy of reform to
solidify both the Church and the country. At Canterbury, Dunstan
founded an abbey east of the city and three churches: Saint Mary, SS.
Peter and Paul, and Saint Pancras.

In 961, Dunstan went to Rome to receive the pallium and was appointed by
Pope John XII a legate of the Holy See. With this authority, he set
about re-establishing ecclesiastical discipline, under the protection of
King Edgar and assisted by Saint Ethelwold, the bishop of Winchester,
and
Saint Oswald (f.d. February 28),
the bishop of Worcester and the
archbishop of York. In those days, English monastic life had almost
vanished as a result of the Danish invasions. They restored most of the
great monasteries, such as Abingdon, that had been destroyed during the
Danish incursions and founded new ones.

Dunstan founded monasteries at Bath, Exeter, Westminster, Malmesbury,
and other places. He drew up rules for each to instil good order.
Recalcitrant secular priests were ejected and replaced by monks in
Winchester, Chertsey, Surrey, and Dorset. About 970 a conference of
bishops, abbots, and abbesses drew up a national code of monastic
observance, the
Regularis Concordia. It was in line with continental custom and the
Rule of Saint Benedict but had its own features: the monasteries were to
be integrated into the life of the people, and their influence was not
to be confined within the monastery walls.

Clergy who had been living scandalous lives and in irregular situations
were reformed. Dunstan remained firm in his moral standards, even to
deferring Edgar's coronation for 14 years--likely due to a disapproval
of Edgar's scandalous behaviour.
He modified the coronation rite, and some of his modifications devised
for Edgar's coronation in Bath in 973 survive to this day.

Through 16 years of Edgar's reign, Dunstan acted as his chief adviser,
criticizing him freely. One on occasion when the king had been guilty
of immorality, Dunstan withstood him to his face, refusing to take his
outstretched hand and turned abruptly from him with the words: I am no
friend of the enemy of Christ. Later he imposed a penance that for
seven years the king was not to wear his crown.

Dunstan continued to direct the state during the short reign of the
succeeding king,
Edward the Martyr (f.d. March 18),
Dunstan's protege.
The death of the young king, connected with the anti-monastic reaction
following Edgar's death, grieved Dunstan terribly. His political career
now over, he returned to Canterbury to teach at the cathedral school,
where visions, prophecies, and miracles were attributed to him. He was
especially devoted to the Canterbury saints, whose tombs he visited at
night.

On the feast of the Ascension in 988 the archbishop was ill but offered
Mass and preached three times to his people, to whom he declared that he
would soon die. Two days later he died peacefully in his Cathedral of
Christ Church, where he is buried. He is considered the reviver of
monasticism in England. It has been said that the 10th century gave
shape to English history, and that Dunstan gave shape to the 10th
century. He composed several hymns, notably Kyrie Rex spendens
(Attwater,
Benedictines,
Bentley,
Delaney,
Duckett,
Fisher,
Gill,
White).

In art, he is shown as a bishop holding the devil (or his nose) with a
pair of pincers; or with a crucifix speaking to him
(White).
He might
also be shown (1) holding the tongs; (2) working as a goldsmith; (3)
playing a harp; (4) with a host of angels near him; (5) with a dove; or
(6) as a monk prostrate at the feet of Christ (in a drawing said to be
his own)
(Roeder).

He is the patron saint of armorers, goldsmiths, locksmiths, jewellers
(Delaney,
White),
blacksmiths, musicians, and the blind
(Roeder).

Through the prayers of St Dunstan and of all the Saints of England,
Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.
* * *

Western Rite Liturgy for St. Dunstan:
Archbishop's Blessing Sung Over the People

May God, the enlightener of all ages, Who made the illustrious and
exalted hierarch Dunstan to shine brightly like one of the Apostles,
make you to be filled with every heavenly blessing through his
righteous prayers, that following in the footsteps of so radiant a
forebear, ye may become people that ascend the ladder to heaven.
People: Amen.

And may He that granted him such noble standing with Himself that being
reverenced and glorified by all the people he might blossom as an
unsurpassed and angelic patron for all the English, Himself kindle the
ardour of your hopes towards that place where this magnificent Saint
flourisheth amidst a choir of Angels. People: Amen.

And may ye that glory to be honoured with such a sublime patron, being
filled with great joy by his miracles and illumined by his teachings,
attain this from the Lord: that ye may be reunited with him in the
kingdom of heaven. Amen.

Which may He deign to grant, Whose kingdom & dominion abideth, etc. ...
May the blessing, etc. ...

The Preface of the Mass, May 19:

It is truly meet and just, right and availing to salvation, that we
should always and in all places give thanks to Thee, pay our vows to
Thee, and consecrate our gifts to Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty,
everlasting God: Who didst beforehand elect Thy blessed confessor
Dunstan for Thyself, a Bishop of sanctified confession, a man shining
brightly with the ncircumscribable light, prevailing by the gentleness
of his ways, afire with the fervour of the Faith, and flowing over with
the brook of eloquence. And in what his glory lay, the multitudes at his
sepulchre reveal, and their purification from demonic assaults,
their healing from diseases, and the miracles of his power, of which we
stand in awe. For even if he made an end here by his passing, according
to nature, the hierarch's righteous deeds live on after the grave, in
that place where there is the presence of the Saviour, Jesus Christ our
Lord. By Whom Angels praise Thy majesty, Dominions worship, the Powers
tremble. The heavens, and the heavenly Virtues, and the blessed
Seraphim, concelebrate in one exultation:- with whom command our voices
also to have entrance, we beseech Thee, humbly confessing Thee and
saying: Holy, Holy, Holy, ...etc.

(The blessing, sequence, and preface are given in full in the complete
Old Sarum Rite Missal, (c) 1998 St. Hilarion Press 1998)